Episode of the Wandering Knife

by Rinehart, Mary Roberts;

  “I’m sorry about Maguire, Brent,” the Commissioner said, in the comparative silence which followed. “But look at it from here. I hadn’t heard from you, and—”

  He stopped abruptly. Brent was sound asleep. His reply was merely a snore, and suddenly the Commissioner smiled. He looked quite human when he smiled.

  So he’s going out in a blaze of glory after all, he thought. Him and his wife’s chickens! It’s a pity these fellows have to quit when they’re still as good as that.

  But of course he did not know about the dogs, preferably Scotties, on which Brent had decided before he slept, or the two young people in a taxi, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. In this last instance only the driver knew, and it meant nothing to him. Nor did the fact that the wig had been already found in a trash can and the bag in a locker at the railroad station, or even that Harry Ingalls was on his way in due time to the chair, with Maud as an accomplice.

  “Them police ain’t so. smart,” he said to his wife that night over the midnight edition of a morning paper. “Got the fellow right off. He must have bungled the job.”

  Brent himself did not read any papers that night. He sat at home with his feet in a basin of hot water while Emma fed him and fussed over him. She did not mention the chicken farm. Nor did he. There would be plenty of time for that. All the time in the world, he thought uneasily. But as he rested he felt better.

  “The Commissioners’s not so bad,” he said. “He was pretty decent, as a matter of fact.”

  “Why not?” said Emma. “You’d done a fine piece of work for him, and he’ll get all the credit for it.”

  “I liked the girl, Emma. She reminded me of ours. I guess that’s why I knew she was innocent.”

  She bent over and rather awkwardly kissed him.

  “What’s over is over, Tom,” she said stoutly. “How are your feet?”

  He lifted one and inspected it.

  “Fine,” he said. “Looks like the blister’s going down.”

  She looked at him. He was no thing of beauty. He was a tired elderly man who needed a shave and a bath, but he was hers, and she loved him.

  “That dog helped you a lot,” she said. “Maybe it means something, Tom. If you still want the kennel you’d better have it. I guess barking is no worse than cackling, although I never knew a dog that could lay an egg.”

  It was surrender, and he knew it. He reached up and patted her hand, while his mind saw the runways he meant to build. Green outside and whitewashed inside. He got a towel absently and dried his feet.

  “Better take a bath and get to bed,” he said. “I’m still on the job for a while, you know.”

  The Secret

  I

  Hilda Adams was indignant. She snapped her bag shut and got up.

  “So that’s that,” she said. “I’m not young enough or strong enough to go abroad, but I can work my head off here. Maybe if I’d had a new permanent and a facial I’d have got by.”

  The man behind the desk smiled at her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It looks as though this war is about over. Anyhow your heart—”

  “What’s the matter with my heart?”

  “It skips a beat now and then. Nothing serious. You’ll probably live to a ripe old age. But—”

  “It skipped a beat because I was making up my mind to commit a murder,” she said coldly.

  She put a hand on the desk. It was alarmingly near an inkwell, and the medical man looked slightly uneasy.

  “Now look, Miss Adams,” he said. “I didn’t make these rules. We need nurses over there, all we can get. But suppose you had to fly at twenty thousand feet?”

  “I’d like it.” However she had moved her hand, and he was relieved. “All right,” she said. “Maybe I did want to be useful, Dr. Forbes. And maybe I wanted some excitement too. At my age there isn’t a great deal. Well, I know when I’m licked.”

  She did not say goodbye. She walked out, and Forbes looked after her thoughtfully. She was a small neat woman, with short graying hair and childlike blue eyes. Her black suit and white blouse showed a sturdy body, and he scowled as he pressed a button on his desk.

  “Get me Inspector Fuller,” he said to the girl who came in. “Here’s the number.”

  He shoved a piece of paper across the desk and sat back. Damn it all, they could have used the Adams woman abroad. She was capable. No nerves, he thought, and she was a motherly sort of woman, too old to upset the boys and not too old to take care of them. But the Board had ruled against her.

  When the telephone rang he took it up sharply.

  “Fuller here,” said a voice. “How about it, doctor?”

  “I wish you fellows would keep out of my hair,” he said, disregarding the fact that he had little or none. “We had to turn her down, if that’s what you want to know.”

  “Why? What reason?”

  “She’s no chicken,” the doctor said sourly. “She has a heart too.”

  Fuller’s voice was startled.

  “Good God! What’s wrong with her heart?”

  “Nothing that will kill her. Skips a beat now and then. She says it was because she was feeling like murdering someone. Maybe we can review the case. I’d be damned glad to use her over here anyhow.”

  There was more than a hint of alarm in Fuller’s voice.

  “Now look,” he said, “lay off that for a week or so, won’t you? I may need her.”

  “She says there isn’t much excitement in her life at her age,” the doctor said drily. “I had an idea that wasn’t exactly true. However …”

  Fuller was apparently stunned into silence. He grunted.

  “Besides, as I’ve said, whether the war’s over or not we still need nurses, Inspector.”

  “Crime’s never over,” Fuller said, recovering somewhat. “And she’s one of my best operatives.” His voice was almost pleading. “Don’t let that face of hers fool you, Forbes. She sees more with those blue eyes of hers than you’d believe. I plant her in a house, and what comes up would make your hair curl. This idea of hers has had me running in circles.”

  Dr. Forbes was unmoved.

  “I wouldn’t count too much on her,” he said. “She looked pretty sore when she left here. Said there wasn’t much excitement in life at her age.”

  Fuller laughed.

  “I wonder what she calls excitement,” he said. “The last case she was on she warned the guilty woman to kill herself or she would go to the chair.”

  “And did she?”

  “Did she what? Oh, the woman! Yes, of course. Put a bullet in her brain. Well, thanks a lot, Forbes. I don’t mind her nursing soldiers, but I didn’t want her to be where we couldn’t get her when we need her.”

  “Better send her a box of flowers,” Forbes suggested. “She’s not feeling very happy just now. Nor am I,” he added and slapped down the receiver.

  Hilda went back to her tidy apartment that afternoon, to her small sitting room with its bright chintzes, where above a Boston fern a canary hopped about in its cage and piped a welcome. And to her austere bedroom where in a locked suitcase she kept the small bone-handled automatic which was as much a part of her nursing equipment as her hypodermic, forceps, bandage scissors, thermometer, and so on.

  She took off her neat black hat and ran her hand over her short hair. Then, which was unusual for her, she lit a cigarette and stood by the sitting room window, staring out. All she saw was a series of flat roofs and chimneys, but she was not really looking at them. Her mind was back in the office she had just left. They should have taken her. She knew all about her heart, which had taken a lot of beating and could still take a lot more. Even if she wasn’t young she was strong. She could work circles around most of the younger women she knew.

  The canary beside her chirped again, and absently she got some lettuce from her small icebox and gave it to him. It wasn’t good for him, she thought, but after all why not get some enjoyment out of life? It was dull enough as it was. S
he had lost a month trying to get to the war. Any part of the war. Now with things as they were she would have to register for a case again. She was needed. They were all needed.

  She was too disgusted to go out for dinner. She fried an egg on the two-burner electric stove in her kitchenette and made coffee in a percolator. Then, having put up a card table and covered it with a white cloth, she sat down to her supper.

  She was still there playing with the food when the flowers came. The landlady brought them up, avid with curiosity.

  “Somebody sure thinks a lot of you,” she said. “That box is as big as a coffin.”

  But Hilda was staring at it suspiciously.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I guess I know who they’re from. And if I had a chance I’d throw them in his face.”

  “Well, really!” The landlady looked shocked. “I must say, if someone sent me a box like that I’d be pleased, to say the least.”

  “That depends on why they’re sent,” Hilda said coldly, and closed the door with firmness. She didn’t look at the flowers. She merely took the lid off, glanced at the card—which said “To Miss Pinkerton, with admiration and regards”—and, ignoring the remainder of her meal, went to the telephone and dialed a number.

  “Give me Inspector Fuller,” she said, and waited, her face a frozen mask.

  When she heard his voice she was so shaken with fury that her hands trembled. Her voice was steady, however—steady and very, very cold.

  “Why the flowers?” she inquired briefly.

  “Now listen, Hilda—”

  “Why the flowers? How did you know I’d been turned down?”

  “Well, you see, I happened to know Forbes. So when he told me what had happened today—”

  “Don’t lie to me. It was a put-up job and you know it. I’m to stay at home and do your dirty work. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  “Look, Hilda, don’t you suppose I want to be in this thing, too? I’ve pulled all the wires I can and here I am. The country’s got to go on, you know. Anyhow, what with your heart and the fact that we’re neither of us as young as—”

  He realized then that she had hung up, and sat gazing rather forlornly at the receiver.

  Hilda did not finish her supper. It was her custom when off duty to take a brief walk in the evening, and in many ways she was a creature of habit. In the winter she walked a certain number of blocks. When the weather was warm enough she walked to the park and sat there on a bench with her knitting. Now, taking the box of flowers under one arm and her knitting bag on the other, she stalked downstairs. She left the flowers outside the landlady’s sitting room, and with a grim face started for the park.

  She did not even look up when a man sat down on the bench beside her. She knitted bleakly and determinedly until she heard him laugh.

  “What a face!” he said. “And I’ll bet you’re skipping stitches, Hilda.”

  She said nothing, and Fuller realized it was serious. But then it was always serious. Hilda did not like working for the police.

  “Heard a curious story today,” he said. “I call it the mystery of the black dot.”

  She looked up then. “Do I have to listen?” she inquired coldly. “I like it here, but I can go home.”

  “It’s nothing to do with you, or me,” he said. “Just a nice little spy story. A black dot on a letter to certain prisoners of war in Germany. The letters weren’t meant to reach the prisoners, and didn’t. They were picked up and the dot magnified from the size of a pinhead to a complete message. Neat, wasn’t it?”

  He watched her. At least she had stopped knitting, but she made no comment. Not for the first time he thought that, except for her hair and her small mature body, she looked almost girlish. It was her skin, he considered, and the clear blue of her eyes. But her face had not relaxed.

  “I might as well tell you now,” she said. “I’m not working for you anymore. I’m too old, and I have a bad heart. I’m going to the country and raise chickens. I’ve always wanted to.”

  “Oh, my God! Is that what they’ve done to you?” he said unhappily. “Now listen, Hilda. I put no pressure on that situation. I said if they wanted you they’d have to take you. But I said I could use you if they couldn’t. And I can. Right now.”

  “I want no more murder,” she said flatly.

  “Would it interest you to try to stop one? After all, life is life, here or at the front, Hilda. There’s a situation building up that’s got me worried. At least let me talk about it. Sometimes it helps me.”

  “I can’t stop your talking,” she said briefly, and picked up her knitting again.

  He lit a cigarette and stared out over the park. The October sun had set. The nurses had long ago taken their small charges home to early supper and bed, and now the children playing about had come from the tenement districts. For this little hour the park was theirs. His eyes softened as he looked at them.

  “Life’s a damned queer thing,” he said. “Look at those kids. They haven’t much, but they like what they have. There are other children who have everything and don’t like anything.” He cleared his throat. “I’m thinking about a girl. She’s perfectly rational, so far as I know. She’s nice to look at, she has money and clothes; she has a young officer who wants to marry her. And I think she intends to kill her mother.”

  Hilda looked startled.

  “What has the mother done?”

  “That’s the devil of it. Nobody knows. There’s an aunt, and she’s about frantic. She thinks it’s a fixed idea, abnormal. I’m not so sure.”

  In spite of her anger Hilda was interested. “There are such things as psychiatrists.”

  “She’s smart. We’ve tried it. No soap. She wouldn’t talk.”

  “How do you know she has this idea?”

  “She’s tried it already. Twice.”

  He stopped at that. Hilda turned exasperated eyes on him.

  “Is this like the sailor who promised to tell the little boy how he’d lost his leg, if he wouldn’t ask any more questions.”

  “Well how did he lose it?”

  “He said it was bit off,” Hilda said calmly, and Fuller laughed.

  “All right,” he said. “The first time she shot at her. The idea is that she was walking in her sleep. Went to the door of her mother’s room and let go twice. Only she missed. That was about two months ago.”

  “People do walk in their sleep.”

  “They don’t fire a gun twice. The first shot would wake them. And they don’t run cars into trees in their sleep. She did that too, with her mother in the car. This time it was to be an accident.”

  “The psychiatrists claim there are no accidents, don’t they?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Fuller said, restraining a feeling of triumph. “What I get out of it is that she’s tried twice and weakened each time. I’ve seen where the car hit. Ten feet further on, it would have gone into a ravine. The tree saved them.”

  She was silent for some time. Darkness was falling, and the children were wandering back to whatever dingy spots they called home. Overhead the lights of a plane flashed on and off. Its muffled beat mingled with the sounds of traffic, of buses and cars and trucks, to make the subdued roar of the city at night.

  “I don’t like it,” Hilda said, after a pause. “I don’t know anything about abnormal psychology, and I loathe neurotic girls.”

  “She isn’t neurotic,” Fuller said positively. “She’s in trouble of some sort.”

  “And murder’s the way out?”

  “There’s one motive the crime writers never touch on, Hilda. That’s desperation.”

  “What has driven the girl to that?”

  “I wish to God I knew,” he said heavily. “Anyhow the aunt fell downstairs today and cracked some ribs. Apparently it’s okay. She wasn’t pushed. But they need a nurse there. You might think about it.”

  “I’ve told you I’m taking no more cases for you.”

  He had to leave it at that. They walked slowly back
to her small apartment, but Fuller did not go in. He said a few rather awkward words about her disappointment, to which she replied with frozen silence. But as he was leaving she spoke abruptly.

  “That girl,” she said. “Does she say these things are accidents?”

  “She doesn’t say anything. I gather it’s the mother who does the explaining, sleepwalking and faulty steering gear.”

  “Anybody hurt in the car?”

  “The girl hurt her arm. That’s all. The aunt’s been to see me. Says they took an X ray at the hospital. No break. She behaved nicely, apparently. Thanked everybody but wasn’t talking much. I’ve seen the surgeon who examined it. He says she didn’t look crazy. She looked—well, defeated was his word. Otherwise she seemed like a nice child.”

  “She doesn’t sound like it,” Hilda said drily. But she made no further comment, and he left her at her door and went on. All things considered, he thought, he had done rather well. Hilda would think it over, and after that either she would call him or something would happen and he would call her. She might not like crime work, but her bump of curiosity was very large.

  II

  He went back to his comfortable bachelor apartment and telephoned his office. There was no message however, and he mixed himself a mild drink and sat down in an ancient leather chair to think.

  It was the aunt, Alice Rowland, who had consulted him. And he had told Hilda, he had known her slightly, a frail middle-aged woman, and she had told him the story, first with an attempt to conceal the identity of the girl involved and finally laying all her cards on the table.

  She was, as he knew, unmarried and until the war she had lived alone in the large Rowland house on Center Avenue. Her brother Charles was a colonel in the Army. He had been stationed in Honolulu, and his wife and daughter had been with him there. He had got them out after the Japanese attacked but had remained himself. Now he was somewhere in the Pacific, and his family was living with the aunt.

  The first two to three years had been all right, she said. At the beginning Nina—the sister-in-law—had been suffering from shock, and the daughter had been overanxious. She was only sixteen then, but she might have been the mother rather than the child.